“You think that’s funny?”
“No, I’m serious. I can’t figure out what you’re doing here. You seem completely unstable.”
“Shut up!” Zia grabs the arms of my wheelchair and leans over me. “If anyone doesn’t belong here, it’s you!”
Marshall rises from the bed and comes toward us. “All right, Zia. Calm down. Please back away from your new friend Adam. I have a feeling this relationship isn’t going to work out.”
Zia waits a few seconds, baring her teeth and breathing on me. Then she lets go of my wheelchair and steps away in disgust. “Look at him. It’s worse than I thought.”
Marshall shrugs. “I don’t know about that. He seems to have some spunk.”
“You’re dreaming, Baxley. He’ll never make it.” She sneers at me again, then heads for the door. “I’m out of here.”
She darts out of the room, quiet as a cat. I take a deep breath as she disappears down the corridor. To be honest, I was a little worried when she grabbed my wheelchair. For a second I really thought she would smack me.
She left the door open, so Marshall closes it. “My apologies, Adam. That didn’t go so well, did it?”
“Yeah, no kidding. What’s her problem? She acts like a gangster.”
“As a matter of fact, she did belong to a gang in Los Angeles. The Twelfth Street Bloods, she told me.”
“Great, that’s just great. How did Hawke find her?”
“She said her father was a captain in the Army, serving under Hawke. After her father died, the general kept in touch with her. He must’ve recommended her for the project when he learned she had cancer.”
“And now we have a psycho on our team.”
“That’s a strong word, Adam. I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s true that Zia has some trouble controlling her feelings. And right now she’s feeling a little negative about you.”
“Why? Because I stared at her in the auditorium?”
“No, because you’re first in line for the procedure. And she thinks she should be first.”
I feel a surge of irritation. “You’re joking, right? Does it really make a difference who goes first?”
“Actually it does.” Marshall steps closer to my wheelchair. “You see, Zia and I have been talking about what will happen if the first attempt isn’t a success. The procedure didn’t work for the adult volunteers, and it may not work for all of us either. General Hawke said you need a strong, resilient personality to successfully transfer your mind to the electronic circuits.”
Standing beside my wheelchair, Marshall looks straight down at me. I can’t interpret the expression on his face, but I can read his body language, and it’s a little threatening. I return his stare. “Yeah, I remember Hawke said something like that.”
“What Hawke didn’t say was what he’d do if the first attempt fails. I realize that the Army has spent a great deal of money on this project, and Hawke doesn’t seem like the kind of man who gives up easily. But if the first try is unsuccessful, he may reconsider the whole experiment. He wouldn’t want to continue killing children if he can’t save their minds. That’s why we’re concerned about you. If you fail, the rest of us may not even get a chance. The Army will send us back home and we’ll die in our beds.”
Marshall’s head looms over me like one of those big African masks carved in dark wood. I know what he wants to say next, and I don’t like it one bit. “So you and Zia are worried that I’m not strong enough to make it?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Adam. Zia believes your father was playing favorites when he put you first in line. So we decided to pay you a visit to find out if we were in trouble or not. It was a bit of a test, if you know what I mean.”
I know exactly what he means. They were studying me. They came to my room to see how tough I am. I’m angry and hurt, but mostly I’m disappointed. I thought I could make some new friends among the Pioneers, but Zia is a bully and Marshall is a weasel.
My chest aches from talking for so long, but I’m determined not to show any weakness. I raise my right hand and point at Marshall. “Well, I have a message for you and Zia. I’m stronger than both of you.” I shift my hand, pointing at the door. “Now get out of my room.”
Marshall stands there for a few seconds, staring. Then he reaches into the pocket of his jeans. “Yes, I had a feeling you might get upset. It’s understandable. We’ve been somewhat deceptive.” He pulls a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “So I thought ahead and prepared a peace offering, a little gift to make amends for my doubts about you. It’s a poem written by Joseph Merrick, the original Elephant Man. He adapted it from an old hymn and put it at the end of all his letters. But here’s the strange thing: when I read the poem now, I think of the Pioneer Project.” He unfolds the paper, drops it in my lap, and steps toward the door. “Good-bye, Adam. And good luck tomorrow.”
I wait until the door closes and I can no longer hear Marshall’s footsteps in the corridor. Then I pick up the paper and read the poem.
’Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God;
Could I create myself anew,
I would not fail in pleasing you.
If I could reach from pole to pole
Or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul;
The mind’s the standard of the man.
Dad returns to my room ten minutes later. He apologizes for the delay—General Hawke had some last-minute questions—then tells me everything I need to know about tomorrow’s procedure.
His voice is calm and patient. He warns me that I can’t be sedated. If the doctors give me sedatives to put me to sleep, the drugs would alter my brain chemistry and distort the copying of my memories. So I have to stay awake during the injection of the nanoprobes and the period afterward when the probes are spreading through my brain tissue. But Dad reassures me that I won’t feel any pain, not even when the scanner blasts its radiation into my head. The brain, unlike most organs in the body, has no pain receptors. Although it’s impossible to predict exactly what I’ll feel as the scanner records the patterns of my mind, at least I won’t be in agony.
As Dad describes what will happen to me, he takes off my clothes and prepares me for bed. He’s done this so many times before that it’s almost automatic. His hands seem to move of their own accord, unzipping and unbuttoning. For years I’ve been embarrassed by the intimacy of this ritual, but now I know this is the last time Dad will put me to bed and I realize there’s something comforting about it. My fears subside and my eyes start to close as he wipes and washes and diapers me.
I’m nearly asleep by the time he lays me down on the stiff mattress of the hospital bed. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I look up at him. “Dad? Why did you put me first?”
“What?”
“For the procedure. The first Pioneer.”
He grabs a folded blanket from the foot of the bed. It’s a gray, wool Army blanket. “Because I knew you could handle it. The other volunteers will probably be fine too, but I can’t be certain about them. I don’t know them as well as I know you.”
“So you think I’m strong enough?”
“Of course. Adam, you’re the strongest person I know.”
With a snap of his wrists, he shakes out the blanket. It billows over the bed, then gently settles on top of me.